You know what still boggles my mind?
Seeing people of all generations (me included) still using abbreviated words in text messages?
The reason for using these abbreviations has long since passed. The high costs. Text messaging is virtually free these days. lol
Now of course they have become a sort of short hand and are used for brevities sake. Pmsl when I think about this next point.
The problem is that unfortunately some people have grown up and somehow have managed to get through the whole schooling system without it being detected that they cannot write proper English?
Nope I'm not joking.
I was told by a trusted source, that he saw a report from a large telecoms provider.
From a mid level manager no less almost completely written in this texting short hand?
It beggars belief?
He asked if this was normal and got some odd looks from the staff as they saw this format as perfectly normal.
This is communication in the 21st century?
He asked why they communicated like that? and they thought he was a bit old fashioned or out of touch?
He is 33 years old and found it so odd that he told me about it and wondered what my thoughts were about it.
My thought was: "No wonder nothing seems to work anymore?*
Have you noticed anything like this use of texting seeping into official type documents?
This is the first of a series of occasional blogs on things that boggle my mind in our life today.
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This is really a problem @molometer ... Texting has influenced the literacy skills of lots of people especially new generations and even old ones. This is already alarming because children nowadays can easily get access to mobile devices and they are using this all the time. The influence of using mobile devices of children and young adults is eroding their literacy skills. And I think texting is killing the language because majority of people who text use shoeten words in which it is modying the language and disregard the rules.
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This is exactly the issue @garokee It is like we are going backwards in terms of literacy. And no one seems to have noticed this decline into ignorance Tip!
People really do not know the value of expression and response in the right way. They always abbreviate it in some words. This is unfortunate, my dear brother @molometer . The reasons are always different. But we have to deal with that. Your topic is very valuable. It reflects your interest and your personality. Thank you for that.
Originally teenagers used the abbreviations as a means to send rmtext messages their parents or legal guardians wouldnt understand if their phones were intercepted. I dislike when adults use the abbreviated words - makes them appear lazy and uneducated. Howevdr, there are a few classics that have a place in vocabulary such as RSVP, FYI, BTW, ILY and OK.
I like your distinguished b&w selfie shot! @molometer
Thanks @ninahaskin I agree with the RSVP, but the need for this short form in official types of communication is out dated and just plain ignorant. Imagine if you got a court order in this format? Would you feel it had any validity or authority?
No authority whatsoever @molometer and I would call the number listed on the summons to verify it's validity. Hope you didn't just jinx us into a jury duty summons!
LOL😉Haha I'm exempt as a teacher from jury duty. Yay! It has some benefits.
Lucky!!!
I cannot relate to your claim that the abbreviations were created because of and relate to expense.
The abbreviations are necessary in order to have 10 chat windows open. Beginning with AOL, innumerable chat apps, VR worlds, and then cell phones.
Well and before that, it was nigh unto impossible to keep up with a rolling IRC or chatroom without abbreviatons. Pretty much that's why gamers still use them like crazy, if they aren't on mic.
1337 aka leet was appropriated from BBS supposedly but I remember it being used to send txt via pagers ... cause pagers had only numbers.
I know my family never knew what the teens were talking about because they couldn't be bothered with modern communication methods. In lots of ways they're typical.
There's this weird gap between the people who created this Internet and cell phone world and the people who were the quickest to adopt it. It's like at least 80% of the people before 1985 +/- had to be drug into the world of electronic communication and media consumption.
Auto-complete is gradually becoming useful enough to drop most of the abbreviations but not completely.
I will tell you that if I am going to write a long document, I have innumerable abbreviations set up in Word's auto-correct feature.
So, it's not education that's going to save the current generation ... it's ai ...
Loverly.
I'm glad to see you're still around. The RSS feed broke and I broke and but now I'm all better ... twas nothing serious just annoying stuff that makes a body feel brainless. ttyl ttfn
Well that was a tour de force as an answer but as one of the people that had to drag people onto computers and then later onto the internet. I can assure you that the 'costs' of texting (small message services) here in the UK was a major factor in the widespread adoption of these particular abbreviations. And it was the kids that jumped on it first because they were broke.
The parents of course by and large had no clue what it was all about and in many cases did not want to know about this new fangled computer lark. They thought it was just another fad!
I didn't mean to imply I don't believe it to be true in your world. I just can't relate to it in my world because all of the above. And maybe because I've almost always had options other than paying per text.
Mostly that's something I have to blame my son for as his age group is all about texting. And he controls the plan for family cell group. Hmm that sounds nefarious. Anyway he's always kept us ahead of the curve when it comes to choosing and paying appropriately for the changing demand in cell features. For example we've also never been blindsided by exceptional data charges.
Honestly, in the US, these textese abbreviations were used long before and after any blip on the radar where expense was a concern because .... i guess we just are more addicted to speed.
If you get short replies from me, I'm ill. Well on a good topic.
Or maybe you just had a more competitive market. The UK and most of the rest of this part of the world have paid extortionate rates from the get go. Still do in many places.
Living in the house across the street from cows, with the hay fields and the mountains behind us .... comes at the cost of being a bit closer to understanding what that's like.
I'm currently at the coffee shop in town where there's actually free, decent-speed wifi. I'm kicking myself for not remembering that there's photos I wanted to upload and that I should have been catching up on my Dtube and YouTube. Oh well. I enjoyed chatting with the husband a good long time.
We can't get cable and know to avoid satellite, so all computer connections to the Internet go through the cell phone. ... To keep this simple, let's just say it gets complicated. ... which reminds me ... I need to add a new antenna for the signal booster to our prepping for spring shopping list.
What is your speed like using the cell phone? There are mobile wifi devises that you can plug into and use as a hotspot.
My son brought his one over the other day as I too live in a broadband black hole.
His MIFI device didn't work to well here but was fine at his house on the lake? Go figure. Plus it's £30 a month? which is rather expensive.
I'm interested in getting something that works because I'm planning an RV trip and need a decent signal up in the mountains of Scotland. Not many coffee shops up there.
Basically, in the US, we hit a setting in our phones that turns our phones into hotspots, broadcasting Internet via wifi. Then we connect pc's wirelessly.
Now as to the cell signal, that's another story. In the summer we have enough trees and I think solar issues too (unconfirmed) that we need a signal booster to maintain a good steady 4G speed. We shop here https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/
Yes. The whole situation is pricey. Cable and DSL run 60 to 80 USD per month.
We get 15Gigs per device per month with a full 4G connection after that it drops to crawl speed but remains unlimited. (This is the speed at which HTML5 fancy displays of real time data (such as Bittrex) tend to break. )
The Hotspot and the fees are now part and parcel with the plan and it's an employee rate so ... i dunno real pricing.
Before this, we had a very old Verizon plan that my son signed us up for that was unlimited data at 4G for $15 each device per month (employee price). We miss it but changes had to be made because families change.
To compensate we added an inexpensive tablet ... so usually between both cell phones and the tablet we survive. Oh, also, the non-hotspot data (purely device viewed data) comes out of a different pool and is basically unlimited.
All in all, we think we're still ahead of broadband costs via cable and dsl. In an irony of ironies, there is fiber optic cable being placed in the area ... they stopped at the cow field and completely skipped this old farm house and the one across the street. But when we looked at the cost ... we said that's okay, we'll let someone else scream and yell about it. Our cell system might be pricey ... but not that pricey AND it goes with us anywhere.
Ok that's pretty much the skinny version of how we do Internet.
OH oh and the other thing we learned the hard way is that there's still a lot of small towns that are not on any broadband anything including not 4G. So the whole "take it with you with a signal booster" is actually vital in order to maybe reach a 4G tower ....
This is not relevant if you only fly to big cities ... which is "No! not on your life. Not on mine either" ;-)
The thing I sometimes deal with is not knowing what the abbreviations stand for. Also emoticons are used a lot. I am guilty of that.
At work they asked us to stop using cursive writing because younger people are not learning it and cannot read it.
What's next? LOL (sorry I like writing that one.) Oh yes and 😇
We had the same issue in school concerning cursive. The parents couldn't read it :0 They are a handy form of short hand but the real problem that I'm getting at, is that many people have never learned the long form of writing. So they are stuck with this limiting form of communication.
Welcome to the new 'dark ages'?
Not when you are using Telus (Canada) as the provider, I am limited to 10 text only before I run out credits, and with limitless typing space on today's phone, sometimes you don't realize that you are already using 3 available text given by the phone provider 😂
Wow that is really surprising? How are they getting away with such a measly texting allowance? No competition? I get 5000 free texts a month?
Maybe it just speaks to how easy it is for human beings to fall into habits, and how we are often too lazy (or ignorant) to stop those habits when the reason for their existence goes away. On my old flip phone you needed to press several keys to create each letter, but even then I still texted with full words. But then again, I'm a writer and editor, and the whole txt spk thing annoys me.
Bright Blessings!
You said it all there @whitelightexpress it a mixture of laziness, ignorance and habit. I must admit that I do use the odd lol occasionally haha!
Oh, don't even get me started on this abbreviated form of communication! I think in the beginning it was started as a money but then migrated to parents not understandig kids texts.
Except...
Then the parents started using it. Don't even get me started on the non-use of cursive handwriting. Seriously.
Loved this post! You always put out such great ones, Michael!!
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Thank you Denise, it is a bit of a weird time we are living in?
Definitely! Everytime one of my kids used it on me, I would text back and ask them what they meant. :)Tip!
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Thanks for the Tip! right back at ya lol
I try not to abbreviate much, unless its FML... because that is a nicer way to say that particular one. Ha!!
O my word @debralee I'm shocked.
When I looked fml up! lol
tl;dr
jk
Both of those comments were a joke, of course. I did read your post, and I agree. I do believe that a big part of the problem is a lack of ability to focus. The internet age has led to shortened attention spans, and there are many kids who browse the web and consume video, but rarely, if ever, read.
It makes me wonder where we will be in 20 years time as it seems people are getting dumbed down on every front of the social landscape. Many students get a shock when they go to university and are confronted with the amount of reading required.
It is definitely a concern, but I think there is still hope. I know many young people (including my kids) who read regularly, are curious about the world, and are on the path to becoming lifelong learners. Every generation worries about the next, and it is easy to focus on the worst examples in society, but I think there are plenty of kids who make the best use of the tools available today.
During the Renaissance, people thought that printed books would lead to a general decline in oratory skills. One can argue whether or not they were right, but few today believe that widely available access to literature has dumbed down the population. I hope the same is true with the internet. It can be a fabulous learning tool, or a major distraction... it's up to the individual to choose wisely.
I agree with your points and this one in particular.
"It can be a fabulous learning tool, or a major distraction... it's up to the individual to choose wisely."
Time will tell. The Dark Ages weren't all bad :)
Hiii my Friend @molometer, nice to see you. Good Morning and have a blessed sunday.
Good day @rabeel what are your views on this texting business?
yes sir now most of people wrote and use to write in short. this is ok in texting with friends but not in official documents.. .
The need to write this way no longer exists and I agree to find it in official documents is kind of embarrassing really.
m agree sir.. it is really embarrassing.
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You mean like cuz for because?
Yes, this is the kind of thing Craig. Is it just lazy or have they learned this way of communicating?
Idiocy is spreading it would seem?
nice
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